Ways and means to expedite the process of land acquisition for extension of the runway of Tiruchi airport will be discussed at a meeting of officials of various departments after Deepavali, it was decided at an Airports Advisory Committee meeting here on Saturday.
Committee chairman and AIADMK’s Tiruchi MP P. Kumar, who presided over the meeting, said himself, Tourism Minister Vellamandi Natarajan, Collector and Airport Director would take part in the meeting. The State government had to acquire 345.62 acres for which administrative sanction had been given last year. The land to be acquired had been divided into eight blocks and the acquisition would be done part by part.
The process was in three stages with 35 persons having filed a writ petition in the court.
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Another portion of land had gone to the Commissioner of Land Administration for issue of notification and the third one for fixation of value. The process of fixing value for 16.40 hectares of land was being done by the district administration prior to forwarding it to the State government for sanction.
A land measuring 6.54 acres had gone for notification by the Commissioner of Land Administration.
The district administration had identified an alternative site measuring 17 acres at Kottapattu revenue village for the residents of Pattathammal Street who were against acquisition of their lands. Besides giving compensation for land acquisition, basic civic facilities would be created at the alternative site under the new Act pertaining to land acquisition.
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Airport Director K. Gunasekaran said Tiruchi airport had earned a net profit of ₹ 38.13 crore in 2017-18 fiscal and expected to earn ₹ 40 crore in the current financial year.
Achhar Singh, a member of Confederation of Indian Industry and Airport Advisory Committee said Jet Airways had decided to discontinue its service in the Tiruchi - Mumbai sector despite enjoying a good load factor. He appealed to the Air India Express to explore the possibility of operating flights on Tiruchi-Mumbai, Tiruchi-Hyderabad, Tiruchi- Delhi, Tiruchi - Kuwait and Tiruchi- Abu Dhabi sectors.